


Sundowner

by Tyellas



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Established Relationship, F/M, Gallows Humor, Hand Jobs, Outdoor Sex, Post-Fury Road, Service Submission, and the world's luckiest billytin, desert laundry time, is that some femdom?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 14:49:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11716599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyellas/pseuds/Tyellas
Summary: Furiosa and Max are locked out of the Citadel for the night. Good thing they’ve got some redemption for each other.





	Sundowner

**Author's Note:**

> A challenge fill inspired by [this thoroughly explicit piece of Furiosa/Max fan art](http://youkaiyume.tumblr.com/post/163839291298/warning-nsfw-this-was-a-smut-prompt-for) from the talented [youkaiyume](http://youkaiyume.tumblr.com). This challenge keeps on giving to our fandom and it was awesome to participate!

Furiosa and Max heard the call at the same time. “Scav! Scav! Oi, scav!”

Furiosa glared out from the passenger side of Max’s car. Ahead of them, the Citadel’s War Tower loomed, vast against the westering light. At this end of the Last Road, where the Citadel’s shelter began, there weren’t many Wretches. One of the few around was perched on a rocky dune by the roadside, shouting at their car.

Max pulled up to hear him say, “They’re not gonna let you up, sundowner. Citadel’s shut the Treadmill for the night.”

Max said, “Shut? Sun’s not set.”

The Wretch raised open hands with a shrug. “They say it’s shut, it’s shut. The shielas in charge don’t run the cog fodder ragged day and night any more. I’d go stamp the Treadmill cogs for ‘em myself, except,” he lifted himself on his hands, swung his lower torso out, “I don’t have any legs!” He cackled.

Max turned to Furiosa. She kept her black scarf cowled over her nose and mouth, her metal arm down. “Summer. Stays light late. We’re stuck.” Max pulled the car out.

Furiosa slumped back in her seat. Of all the nights to miss the Citadel’s curfew, it would happen after one of the filthiest days of her life.

It had seemed like a good idea, asking Max to take her on a discreet day’s run to the Broken Coast, to visit the Wildcatters. They were escaped slaves from the Bullet Farm, carving out a new life as fixers and fuelers for the Wasteland. Their half-refined diesel and scant food were useless to the Citadel. Still, the Citadel's council agreed it was worth something to have them as allies, if only to keep them from becoming enemies.

The run had gone fine. Furiosa had offered them a steady trickle of aqua-cola for news. For once, she had sealed a deal to everyone’s satisfaction. But it had all taken place in the smoke of open trenches where the Wildcatters burned raw oil down into fuel, near maggot farms fed with fish from the dubious sea. Their camp stank like nothing on earth. After a day there, Furiosa and Max did, too.

Furiosa’s skin crawled in misery as Max drove them on. She’d known it was soft to anticipate cleaning up back at the Citadel. Now, they could shelter in Max’s car and eat emergency rations, but getting clean was probably impossible. She had to make the best of being down here for the night. This was what it was to be barred from the comfort and privilege of the Citadel. To be…Wretched.

Max, her Fool and no fool, picked up on her mood. “Mph?”

Furiosa tried to shove it all away. “That man. _I don’t have any legs_.”

Max surprised her with a half-smile. “Scav humor.”

Furiosa looked aside. Her left arm twitched. She didn’t think much about her lost hand, any more. But she never, ever joked about it.

Just as Max trusted her, now, with his rare flashes of boneyard humour, she trusted him enough to not ask where he was taking them. He was cruising around the base of the Citadel’s third tower, the Water Tower, below the Skullmouth.

Stopping the car below the Skullmouth, Max pointed up. “The ropes?”

War Boys and other daring, stupid people sometimes took a Citadel shortcut by rappelling up and down the cliffs. Furiosa checked upwards, then subsided. “Breaking the rules. A bad precedent.” She, herself, had spoken for the curfew’s strictness before the Council. Because what came down was what was expected to go up – and it was far too easy to impersonate a War Boy.  “Where do you want to camp?”

“Got a quiet spot. Aqua-cola?”

“Good idea.”

Max heaved himself out of the car. He gave a curt nod of approval as Furiosa took the driver’s seat. She would watch the car while Max filled two big containers with water. They’d emptied them (and more) sealing the deal with the Wildcatters. The Citadel had placed a pair of taps at the base of the Water Tower. They looked absurdly small, but they meant everyone down here could have water, without wasting a drop. Max took his offbeat stride towards the line of other people wanting aqua-cola.

The others waiting were the same people she’d feared as a Wife, ignored as a War Boy, then an Imperator: Wretches. Max seemed to be an old hand among them. Waiting, she remembered how Max had fled the Treadmill for the Wretched mob after the Fury Road. Later, when Max had started to return, messages had come from the Treadmill first thing in the morning: Max was here. He must have been parking overnight down here, instead of coming up the last Treadmill. That had stopped when she and Max became lovers. Now, inside the Citadel, he endured jerky, irregular sleep by her side. After his slavery as a blood bag, the place still had shadows for him. Out here, his shoulders were relaxed as he progressed through the line.

When Max was done at the head of the line, capping the containers, he reached up to stop a child from running into them. Someone exploded from the line and started screaming at him. Furiosa snatched her scoped rifle – she shouldn’t leave the car. But Max was backing away, shoulders bowed, letting them yell it out at him while they seized their child. Another Wretch stepped between them, gestured Max on. Weighed by the water, he lumbered off as quickly as he could, ignoring the insults tossed at his back.

Arriving, Max chunked the water containers in the back. All he said was, “I’ll drive.”

“What was that about?”

“I touched her kid.” It was Max’s turn to look away from her. Furiosa kept herself from saying: _that's what my Mothers would have done, too._ With his head hanging, Max didn't need to hear that.

Furiosa slid back to her own side, fast. Max took them away from the huts and camps briskly, to the fin of stone that projected off the Water Tower’s southern side. They went all the way around, past where the Last Road curved in, to the Wasteland side of the cliff. Though the view was good, nobody was on this side for a reason. Sand piled in dunes against the stone. It would have been baking hot during the day. The sun was blocked, though, and the air here was a breath cooler.

Furiosa got out and peeled her black scarf off. If the air had a burn, after the Wildcatters, she didn’t notice. “You’ve camped here before.”

Max made a noise of agreement. “Hungry?”

Furiosa licked her lips and tasted smoke and stink. She was instantly nauseous. Without thinking, she said, “All I want is to get this filth off me.”

“ _Mmmmmh hmmm_ ,” Max agreed. He pulled his jacket off, tucking it on the seat of his car. He paused and sniffed, half-raising an arm and frowning. “Mph.” With that he did something he hardly ever did by daylight: pulled off his worn base shirt. Furiosa watched as he backed away from her and buried it in the sand. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he was giving it a burial to never wear it again. Instead, he explained, “Hot sand’ll get most of the stink out.”

Furiosa couldn’t move fast enough. She whipped off her metal arm, nesting it in Max’s jacket like always. Max’s eyes widened as she stomped beside him, kicked her own depression in the sand, and threw her scarf, waist bracer, and shirt in the sun-baked silica. She kicked and jerked her boots off, then buried her trousers. For good measure, she yanked off her under-wraps and buried them, too, with the rest of her Citadel clothes.

Max’s eyes roved her nudity. His mouth opened, closed, opened again. “You’re---”

Furiosa snapped, “I don’t care. Anyone looks wrong at me, they can die later. I’ll scrub this stink off with sand if that works.” She lifted one foot, then the other, on the warm ground. It was already easier for her to breathe. “Does it work?”

“Can do better, here.” And he limped to the car, lumbered back over, with a burden. It was one of the big water containers, and he put it at her feet.

 “Water alone won’t shift guzz fumes. We shouldn’t waste it.”

Max was both gentle and harrowed. “There’s enough. What you did…this is a good place, now. Not a lot of that, any more.” He reached into one of his leg pockets and pulled out a fistful of rags. From its heart he extracted a gray sliver of luxury: soap. “They even trade.” He held it out, offering.

Her eyes suddenly stung. Max could evade his Citadel past out here. Some of hers was waiting, where she’d tried to ignore it, as she had for her Citadel years. _Filthy wretches. The deformed and rotting garbage of the Wasteland_. It had been the Sisters who led the way to treat them like people. Now that they were, they lined up for water. Defended children. Gave Max soap. What it was, she thought again, to be Wretched. “You first,” she croaked. He’d earned it.

Max dumped some water over his hands and the soap, lathering up. He scrubbed his hands together. As he did, a layer of iridescence caught the westering light. Next, he did his pits, stretching out his tight waist as he moved. His heavy, blocky clothes usually hid the lines of his body. Furiosa got a good view of them as he gave in to scrubbing his lightly furred chest, dashing a handful of water to rinse himself. The rinsing aqua-cola sleeked his chest’s hair into rivulets. It dried almost instantly to catch the sunlight, a layer of temptation on his ruddy-tawny flesh.  She watched it all, fascinated.

Soon, soap and scrubbing had stripped away Max’s grime, leaving him fresh yet wild. He rubbed the last traces of soap over his face stubble, scrubbing from forehead to chin. When he treated himself to a final handful of water in his face, he shook his head from side to side, sending drops flying, forgetting himself enough to smile fully.

Max’s animal pleasure in the water, gilded by the thickening sunset light, was turning her weariness into giddiness. When Max held out his hand to her, it took a moment to realize he was doing it because he was handing her the soap a second time.

Slowly, Furiosa took it in her one hand. It was very slippery. Among the War Boys, cleaning up had been a shadowed, dank affair. Within the Immortan’s Vault as a guard, she’d kept herself dirty to mark herself apart, untouchable. Here and now, Max’s haunted eyes were beseeching her to enjoy what he had. She gripped Max’s gift and began with her face and neck. By the time she reached her shoulders, the soap had gone matte and clinging.

One hand was nothing to laugh about. She could kill in an instant, but she couldn’t tilt a ten-liter jug and catch water from it at the same time. The tasks of living took her twice as long, when she could do them. Max gave her space for them, at least. Furiosa asked, “Pour some water for me?” She lifted her stump. “I can’t do both.”

Max’s brows crumpled in concern. He stepped over to clunk through his gear in the car’s boot. After a moment, he was kneeling at Furiosa’s feet, pouring some of the water into his dented, fire-blackened billycan. Humbly, he lifted it up to her.

Furiosa dipped her one hand in the billycan, stroking soap and water over herself again and again. Max handed up the knot of rags, and she used that, too. She heard herself sigh. Being close to clean after that filth felt like Valhalla. “Can I rinse with the billy?”

“Wastes less if I do it,” Max muttered. He filled the billycan a second time and stood in front of her. Very carefully, he poured water down, then smoothed it away. The first time Max did this was down her front, over her heart, fingertips barely brushing her small breasts. Furiosa’s entire ribcage lifted to his touch. Water soothed as he rinsed her sunburned left shoulder and her chafed stump. He stroked water down her right arm, where she couldn’t clean herself, kneading the muscles there, sliding the soap out of her hand. When he had it, he ran it down her entire right side, and followed it with another handful of water. The dusk breeze off the Wasteland felt cool over her moist skin.

When the water was trickling over Furiosa’s hip bones, Max sank to his knees in front of her and simply continued. Furiosa’s tense right leg and profoundly scarred left leg both slackened under his rough, cleansing hands. Max leaned to one side to tilt the jug again, returning with a third billy-can of water in one hand, the soap in the other. “You, uh, want more?”

This was how Max had been during their negotiations all day, questions behind questions, protecting her power. Furiosa spread her legs slightly. “Yeah.” And tilted her head back as his slick, soaped hands kneaded the back of her thighs, and even higher.

Max was close enough to her crotch that she could feel his hot breath brush her hip bones. Her eyes continued to devour him. Against these parts of her that rarely saw the sun, Max’s skin fairly glowed. He turned up to her, the sunset light catching in the creases around his eyes, and inhaled to lean back and slowly pour water down her belly. Kneeling in front of her, vulnerable for her dignity, making her feel alive and whole again. “Soap too,” she said, eagerly. It would dry her out for now, but she’d be clean for later. After dark. She flexed under Max’s hands with anticipation.

He felt her muscles tense and flinched back, eyes darkening. Furiosa suddenly remembered the parent who’d shrieked at him earlier. Max’s serving hands, after that, his careful giving, twisted inside her chest. She reached down and stroked his shoulder. “Can I drink out of that?”

Max stood and held the billycan in both hands. He was superbly careful, tilting it when she lowered her face to it, staying still as a rock so she didn’t bang her teeth against the metal. The aqua-cola had the slightest metal tang from the steel container. Furiosa lifted her head and wiped her mouth, staring into Max’s blue eyes with their own note of steel.

With her barefoot and him still in boots, he was, for once, a scant two fingers shorter than she was. She ran her one hand down his chest, resting it over his heart. Her naked length, scars and all, pressed against him. Kissing him was as natural as swallowing the water.

Max dropped his free arm to circle Furiosa’s waist. His clean warmth was marvellous, irresistible.  Against her, he groaned. “Chafing. Hold on.” Flat-out blushing, he pulled back and undid his trousers. Furiosa felt herself smile when he reached down there to rearrange his cock. On impulse, she sent her one hand to follow his. Inside his slightly damp leathers, his cock was warm suede, thickening over a firm core, hard enough to twitch at her touch. Max swallowed audibly.

“My turn,” Furiosa said. Max stayed frozen. She caught his eyes darting over her shoulder, at the stones around, at the horizon. “See anything?”

Max grunted denial.

Furiosa nodded. She was close enough to breathe in his ear. “You said it’s good here. You’re the one who’s good.” She clenched her hand around the head of his cock, drawing it out from Max’s leathers, cupping the blunt, tempting weight of it. His eyes narrowed, head tilting back. Furiosa grinned. One hand without tools was strong enough to kill. It could keep her alive. It could also do this. “Let me show you…” She would. She’d make Max know he was alive and wanted, too.

They swayed together, still standing. Max rocked back as Furiosa rolled her grip up and down his shaft.  He let her burrow down to weigh his balls. They were more than a handful, rising and tightening. She knew his cock well by now. Furiosa traced one finger back up its centre ridge. When she wrapped her fingers around his cock again, it was firm and slippery. She could rub her calloused thumb over the tip and feel the slit there, very slightly swollen as it pulsed clear, musky fluid. Max was between helplessness and ferocity, half-snarling, knees buckling.

Furiosa felt clear and fearless. She swayed into a drop with him, slipping an ankle behind him to encourage him down, catching his elbow in her stump to keep it from being a fall. Max caught himself on his own elbow. Furiosa followed him down, knees between his legs, spreading him. He opened for her, lifting his hips out of his leathers to expose himself more. She leaned on her stump for leverage, to claim his cock again with her hungry grip. Every time she crushed the wide length of him, her own cunt pulsed. Max gasped, “Won’t last.”

“Good,” she said.

His eyes flew wide at this permission, then squeezed shut as she gripped him again. Three strokes had him jerking up towards her. He swallowed a groan into a near-silent rasp. Furiosa was fierce with the need to feel him give it up for her. When his shaking hand cupped the back of her head, she let him lean up to mouth at her face. She turned his kiss back against him, probing into him with her tongue, muffling their shared groans, while she stayed braced above him. All the while, her arm and hand worked him like a V-8’s pistons. She felt it when Max’s cock went tight and hard in her grasp, contracting with urgency. She shifted so her thumb pressed his most sensitive spot, right where the slick cock-head met the shaft. His entire body heaved again. With one deep, swallowed huff, he broke their kiss. Warm come spilled over her fingers. Furiosa opened her eyes slightly to see him fall back, still wracked.

Satisfied and practical, she reared back onto her knees and licked her fingers clean of him. It took Max a moment to open his eyes. His fingers curled around her stump arm’s elbow. Thickly, he asked, “You?”

A chill wind blew in from the east, scathing sand against Furiosa. She leaned forwards to peer eastwards, her hand half-supported, half-protective as she leaned on Max’s chest. She decided she wanted to stay on her fast-pulsed edge for a while. “Soon. It’s changing out here.” She rose smoothly to pull their clothes out of the cooling heap of sand. Experimentally, she held her inner wraps to her nose. They smelled better than they had in a while. She set them on a rock, checked the area – they still had it to themselves - and treated herself to more aqua-cola from the billycan. She set it down beside Max, so he could drink. Max was right. It wasn’t so bad down here. She might think more about that now that she could stop ignoring it, and after they prepared against the nightfall. It was still the edge of the Wasteland.

Furiosa beat the sand out of Max’s shirt. “Want clothes?”

Max had turned onto his side to watch her, his eyes still glazed. There was that half-smile of his again, so rare inside the Citadel. “Should. But I don’t have any legs.”

Finally, Furiosa laughed.

**Author's Note:**

> Billycan = Essential part of Down Under camping. A billycan can be as simple as a big tin can on a piece of wire, or a specially made small, tall, narrow pot with a wire handle for hanging. Stick it over your campfire and soon you'll have hot water, or hot food, or you'll be ready to make "billy tea" with some herbs. 
> 
> In a preview, North American readers asked, "what's a billycan?" and Australians said, "why are you calling it a billycan when everyone knows what a billy is?"


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